Belvedere Road Culvert Project Spawns Eco-Flap

August 31, 2009 at 12:00 am

What was supposed to be a routine replacement of a couple of culverts on Damariscotta’s Belvedere Rd. turned into a complicated eco-flap last weekend involving a trio of state agencies, a confused contractor, a land trust, and one hopping mad neighbor.

It began late last week as workers for N.F. Luce Construction set up a dam on Oyster Creek to block the tidal waters in order to dry the opening so they could set the base for the new culverts. Then they started to pump out water from Oyster Creek.

Keith Plummer lives on little Oyster Creek on land his ancestors bought from the Indians in the 1700s. In addition to his landscaping business, he is an amateur environmentalist and keeps a close eye on the wildlife in the tiny stream that runs past his backyard.

On Friday morning early, he went down to the creek and saw a trio of otters in the creek bed that was now almost dry.

“They were stressed,” he said.

He then went down to the nearby construction site and saw much of the water had been pumped out of the wide area where Oyster Creek flows under Belvedere Road into Great Salt Bay.

Plummer got on the phone calling every state agency he could think of, including the Department of Marine Resources and the Damariscotta River Association.

“I got a call from Plummer and John Sowles, the director of ecology for the DMR, on Wednesday afternoon. I went down and saw the water was out of the creek,” said Mark DesMeules, the executive director of the Damariscotta River Association. “It is a protected area and this should not happen.”

“They had a dam (down stream from the road) blocking the tide from coming into the creek,” said Plummer. “The contractor was also pumping water out of the creek.”

The project is located less than a mile from the Damariscotta River Association headquarters. The DRA also owns land bordering Oyster Creek.

The contractor, Norman Luce, said he was working as fast as he could to replace the culverts. “We were doing exactly what the specs told us to do,” Luce said.

He explained that the state specs call for the contractor to set the base for the culverts on a dry surface with gravel under it so it is level and stable.

“What happened was that we had to pump out more water than we anticipated and that was not right,” he said.

On Thursday the pumping continued and the calls crisscrossed between representatives of the Dept. of Transportation, the Dept. of Marine Resources, the Dept. of Environmental Protection and the Damariscotta River Association. Plummer was still on the phone too.

On Friday afternoon, state officials ordered Luce to stop work and reverse the pump to send salt water back in to the creek.

Luce’s workers left the job Friday night with the pump working.

Sometime during the night, someone, no one is sure who, vandalized the plastic seal on the temporary dam, said Luce. The pump sucked the plastic in and stopped the water flow back into the creek. It was the second incident of vandalism.

On Aug. 4, the day Luce blocked the road to begin the project, someone broke the windows out of his excavator. Luce said he notified law enforcement.

When Luce got to the construction site on Saturday morning, he noticed the pump running, but the inlet was plugged and no water was coming back into the creek. Luce said his workers breached the dam and let the tide back in.

On Saturday and Sunday the salt water flowed back in filling the broad creek with seawater.

On Monday morning, officials from the three agencies huddled with engineers and the contractor.

“We have made a suggestion on how to finish the job. It is up to the state agencies to decide what to do and how to pay for it,” said Luce.

“This is a project paid for with federal stimulus funds and the state wants to make sure every thing is right because the feds will be looking over their shoulder,” said Luce.

Steve Palmer, the resident engineer for the DOT’s bridge program, confirmed the project is 100 percent funded by $400,000 in federal stimulus monies. He estimated the project would cost an additional $33,000 but said that estimate could grow.

“Luce did nothing wrong. He did exactly what his permit said he was supposed to do. The problem was that the state specs did not say anything about a tidal stream. They were written for normal streams,” said Palmer.

Now, to fix the problem Palmer said the contractor will have to construct a new dam with crushed rock and fabric to block the water upstream from the road.

“We will have to pump sea water over the dam into the creek, and pump fresh water from the creek into the Great Salt Bay and maintain a level that is suggested by the DMR,” said Palmer. “We may have four or five pumps going at the same time,” he said.

Luce said he had crews on stand by hoping to work through last weekend to get the huge culverts, measuring 12 feet in diameter and 92 feet long, in place.

“We would have been done by now, but, really, that was too long for the flats (to stay dry),” he said.

According to Sowles, the dry conditions are not likely to harm the marine animals in the creek.

“Tidal animals are robust,” he said. “They endure saltwater part of the time and fresh water other times. The water is hot in the summer and freezes in the winter. They are pretty tough. This is not a brook trout stream where the water must remain at a cool temperature.”

DRA director Mark DesMeules was not so sure.

“Yes they are tough, but we need to be exceedingly careful when the temperature is high, like it is right now,” DesMeules said. “It is disturbing when they dewater a tidal flat, this should not have happened.”

When a visitor asked the group of state officials, contractors and engineers why the problem happened in the first place, the question was met with dead silence.

Finally Sowles, a 30-year veteran of the environmental protection movement who plans to retire soon, offered an answer.

“I guess you have two state agencies. The public wants good roads and the transportation department was doing what the public wants by replacing the culvert. The public wants to protect the environment and the DMR is working to protect the environment. I guess the answer is communication,” Sowles said,

He promised the event would face a post construction study.

Palmer said the job was supposed to be completed by Sept. 4 but the time will probably will be extended for a week to 10 days.